The Destiny

...is to take root among the stars

March 15 - May 10, 2025
Free & Open to the public
Saturdays & Sundays 1:00 - 5:00 pm
& by appointment

Opening Reception
Saturday March 15, 6:00 - 8:00 pm

The exhibition is curated by guest curator Jaime Ransome and includes works by:

Destiny Arianna
Vernon Byron
Cy Hinojosa
Lala Montoya
Alisa Sikelianos-Carter
Tony Washington

Inspired by the prescient works of African American, feminist author, Octavia Butler, The Destiny is an exhibition of six BIPOC artists working in upstate New York. The exhibition examines concepts prevalent in Butler’s Parable of the Sower, which depicts imagined futures and recalls distant pasts through magical realism in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The novel reflects our fears about climate change, canonizes our futures as intelligent beings on a dying planet, and unearths the “essential human resources” that will be necessary for humans to inhabit - not colonize - a new world in space or on an unrecognizable Earth.

Artists Lala Montoya and Destiny Arianna illuminate stories of our Indigenous histories, imploring the audience to remember the parables of their families, for they have encrypted the codex for humanity’s success in their stories, rituals, and heirlooms. The works from artists Tony Washington and Vernon Byron resonate the tone of our present, warning about the correlation between rapid technological expansion and systematized dismantling of cultural collaboration. Alisa Sikelianos-Carter and Cy Hinojosa depict our paths to the future - our devolution if we seek no other home and our cosmic legacy if we return to the stars. 

Contributing to an evolving vision of Afro-Futurism, these works of painting, ceramics, video, mixed media, and installation exercise Butler’s theory that small groups of similarly motivated people can create great change. The Destiny acts as a blueprint for how to build something new and sustainable, especially during eras of devastation, hopelessness and fire. Butler finds hope in the idea that Earth is just a womb - just the beginning - and that only by radically reinventing our relationship to it by venturing outside it can our species truly be born, grow, and change. 

“All that you touch you Change. All that you Change Changes You. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.”
-Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower 

Programming at Ann Street Gallery:

March 29, April 12 (POSTPONED to April 16), April 26, 6:30 - 8:30pm 
“Parable of the Sower” Book Club
Led by exhibition Curator Jaime Ransome.
Free and open to the public.
Details here.
RSVP requested, not required to jransome.curation@gmail.com

April 5, 2:00-4:00pm
Storytelling through Mixed Media Collage Workshop with Destiny Arianna.
Free and open to the public.
Limit 12 participants.
Details here.
Reservations required: email with full name and phone number destinyariannastudio@gmail.com

May 10, 4:00-5:00pm
"Indigo Rising" Afrofuturistic Dance & Drumming by Rhythm of Water Productions featuring PsiFire

Listen to The Destiny Curated Playlist on Spotify here.

EXHIBITION MATERIALS:

Exhibition Checklist
^{(Price list available upon request)}

The Destiny Curated Playlist on Spotify.

Curated Reading List 008 by Jaime Ransome
(click to view/download)


Press:

Hyperallergic 10 Art Shows to See in Upstate New York This April
(Download PDF here)

Chronogram
Curating the Cosmos: "The Destiny" at Ann Street Gallery (Download PDF here)

Two Coats of Paint 
Hudson Valley Selected Gallery Guide: March 2025

Download Exhibition Guide Here

The exhibtion guide will include materials lists and dates, along with artist statements.

Guest Curator Jaime Ransome

jransomecuration.com

@jransome.curator

Destiny Arianna

destinyariannastudio.com
@destinyariannastudio

My artistic practice is driven by a deep commitment to reclaiming and reimagining the narratives surrounding Black and Indigenous identities. I believe art can challenge the dominant narratives that often marginalize these communities, offering alternative perspectives that reflect our histories, cultures, and lived experiences. Through my interdisciplinary approach, I aim to engage with the complexities of identity, history, and the environment, using art as a reclamation, to challenge stereotypes, and continue to preserve culture. My work questions ways we are socialized, or taught to think about culture, ownership, and belonging.

My practice spans a variety of media, including photography, collage, painting, and installation. Each medium allows me to explore different facets of my identity and my relationship to the land. In my work, I address themes such as land stewardship, ancestral memory, and the reclamation of sacred spaces.

My aspiration for the work I create—both in the present and moving forward—is for it to serve as a means of cultural preservation, a catalyst for social transformation, and a profound reminder that our identities are fundamentally intertwined with the land we inhabit, shaping not only our present but also our future.

I am interested in the conceptual and physical limitations of media and materiality. This body of work is a conceptual subversion of the collage process. Instead of physical textures, I capture material phenomena, such as water rippling, reshape them into polygonal planes, and arrange them to form contrasting areas of color, material, and directional flow that move in consonance and dissonance. The collaged forms utilize space, time, and site to create rich, multidimensional structures that shift cyclically over set temporal intervals, defying the flatness and stillness attributed to the printed image. In this work, the materials in question are the structure of the human form (as expressed through dance), light, shadow, and the mass of the surrounding (visual) space. As the piece progresses, each element commands the viewer’s focus as they traverse the image plane and exit the scene.

Subjects in every scene portray habits of humans that I believe would follow us into the stars, whether it is seeking faith in the misdirection of false prophets, or altering ourselves to find comfort in discomfort. Humans are creatures of habit no matter where we find ourselves, on or off-world.

Las que sirven (The ones that pour) and Las que sostienen (The ones that hold) are a series of ceramics dedicated to concepts of the world majority - A world of people of color - where first nation people, aboriginals, black folks, mestizos - the world we (the artist) inhabit. A world where we understand that EVERYTHING IS INTERCONNECTED - a world where we understand the importance of all beings, that we see all elements as alive, as belonging, as ancestors - A Language where the word “I” el “YO” “MINE - MIO” does not exist. In this series we carve into clay as our ancestors would have, all that is important to remember - we see ourselves in our role now as ones that pour out and we understand that those who have no written words have to hold what we pour - in this series we create pieces to highlight all the beings, the ideas, the thoughts, the skills, the seeds that we believe are essential to our thrivelihood - understanding that if the ones who receive thrive, then those who pour thrive as well. And if the vessel - Clay - the mother is adorned, and held by the many and the 7 generations she will continue to carry us.

Las que sirven (The ones that pour) is marked by US - humans – peoples. The word human comes from the Latin word hūmānus, which is derived from homo meaning "man" and humus meaning "earth". This pitcher with 7 handles - representing 7 generations of peoples who shape, and pour all this wisdom out into the mother - understand that the root of this name Human comes from EARTH - and earth teaches us and gives us all we need if we observe and listen.

Las que sostienen (The ones that hold) embraces the non human life - but acknowledges what the Rarámuri tribe know today as: iwígara is “the belief that all life-forms are interconnected and share the same breath” what is poured into this bowl, all the animal and elemental life have to hold - they not only depend on each other and are interconnected but we (humans) hold the water - the essence - that will allow all life forms to thrive.

Inspired by the concept of human bioluminescence and our physical link to stars, Aurora, Vespers, and Midnight were recently included in Alisa Sikelianos-Carter's presentation We Make Our Own Light at Nada NY in 2024. These three works are an offering to and gesture of the divine and potential within. A continuation of her Africosmos series– two-dimensional printed fractal compositions of braids, twists, and dreadlocks, intricately hand adorned with layers of glitter– she has created these new works as studies in luminosity and restrained maximalism. Aurora, Vespers, and Midnight are named for the quality of light that marks our transitions throughout the day. Reminiscent of shields, stained glass, prisms, and abstract free-form renderings of spirit, these works capture the intimate and fleeting glimmers connecting us to the natural world.

Afronauts and Ancestors employs many Afrofuturist themes. There are elements of otherworldly alienation, callbacks to Black history, radical reenvisionings into the future as a space for people of color, and, given the lack of discernible human faces on her figures, a strong case to be made for new speculation about Black identity. What is interesting to note is that the heads of Alisa Sikelianos-Carter's figures are obscured by what the artist refers to as "crowns": photographs of intricately braided hair (a reminder that Black people and hair is a legitimate thing) here, the crowns do more than draw the viewer's attention they also impede the viewer's recognition of Sikelianos Carter’s figures as unique and definitely human individuals. This is significant because while these hair crowns signify Black culture, the figures highlight something of a more otherworldly nature. What we have is a new sort of figuration, one that uses abstractions to signify an alien identity and yet grounds these abstractions in historical and figurative language codes of the Black body. In short, Sikelianos-Carter has mapped out a new way of approaching and representing Blackness, and it shows how incorporating a bit of Afro-futurist aesthetics into visual work allows one to re-invision Black identity in an intersectional multidimensional way.

As a black neurodivergent artist, hip hop music, particularly elements of sampling, jazz, soul, and graffiti have shaped Washington's identity as a black man. Throughout his upbringing, he silently found blackness in a whitewashed community through hip-hop and protected himself through his headphones, locs, camera, sketchbook, and cans of spray paint. The places he called “home” as a young adult were ultimately just environments of chaos where he stored his belongings. “There is a unique expectation that applies to being raised in an environment where the color of your skin poses a threat to the status quo. My objective is to encourage young black men like me to express themselves freely without stigmatization and find their voices wherever they exist,” says artist T0NEWASH.

Exhibition Funders:
Safe Harbors' Ann Street Gallery programming is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and with funding from the Cowles Charitable Trust, Dominican Sisters of Hope, M&T Charitable Foundation, and TD Charitable Foundation.